An excerpt from the short story, Sailing, by Jacob Oet:
I am back at the dock for my lunch. I have a locker outside the fishing and boating shop. I find I cannot remember the combination. It slipped out of my mind and into the Pacific. I know, with a sinking feeling, that I will never get it back. I won’t eat, then. I walk down the dock, feeling empty, like a washed up shell. So this is how it feels to be my body, rather than living as something inside it. The old man is sitting on the icebox, picking the eyes out of a fish-head with a splinter of wood. I sit on the bench and watch the man working. Hungry, I try again to remember the locker combination, but it won’t come. I am always either on the inside looking out, or on the outside looking in. I crane my neck to look through the store window, where a blond man unwraps a sandwich.
Once the Pacific takes something, it will not give it back. Anytime I capsize or dip an ankle or hand into the water, the ocean takes a part of me. On the first day of summer I slipped while on the boat and fell in. When I got back to the dock, I remembered my father had asked me to complete an errand, but I found I could not remember exactly what it was. Sometimes I go into the water feeling big and powerful, and I come out small and cold. There are the physical things too that I can never get back. The Pacific is hungry. For this reason I have stopped taking my lunch onto the boat. Several years ago, every day for a week, after my uncle first let me sail on my own, I took my lunch with me, and capsized each day. My uncle, who owned a small fishing boat and made money taking vacationers on private trips, died of a heart attack last year. It happened while he was with a young couple from LA. The couple went to my father the next day, who they had found by asking around on the dock, and demanded a refund. My father said nothing and slammed the door in their faces. We never heard from them again.
I sit on the bench, thinking. The Pacific is so big. I am only just a body, and sometimes less. Yet I feel the Pacific has lost itself to me as well, because I have become like it. Or it has worn me down, as it has stones on the shore. Although on the surface I have a flat nose and red hair, inside I am like the ocean. Inside, I have no defining features, and yet am infinitely deep. People and things sink in me, to where I cannot reach them. When I speak, my words are islands that drift out of sight.
I was six when my uncle took me sailing on the boat he would later give me. I remember how strange I felt as soon as the boat left shore. I still belonged to the earth, then. I don’t know when I stopped being able to speak. That’s another thing the Pacific has taken from me.
My stomach rumbles. The old man tips his head back and pushes the fish-head into his mouth, chewing only a little before swallowing. He lies down and stretches out over the blankets, throwing his arms behind his head. He joins his hands together and kicks his feet, as if swimming on his back. He is thin. His face, behind all the dirt, is round and boyish. Maybe he still remembers his name.
When I get home, it is five o’clock. I hear my father yelling, “Why are you back so early? Fall in or something? Lose your lunch?” I want to scream. I walk to the kitchen where he is sitting. I don’t say hi. “Richard, I’m talking to you, or have you decided now to be deaf as well as mute?” He will mock me if I tell him the truth.
“Sorry,” I force words out of my mouth, “I forgot to pack lunch.” I take a plum and a loaf of bread from the refrigerator, and pour myself a glass of milk, thinking of the old man. We have so much food, and he has just enough to live like a dog, taking any scraps he can get. We have dinner at nine. My mother tells us what happened to the grocer’s cousin. Neither my father nor I say another word for the rest of the evening.
The next day, I pack two peaches, a bagel, and a granola bar. No one gets on the shuttle after me. The old man is sleeping on the dock. His hair is greasy and white, and shines like the sun on the shore. I walk, holding the lunch bag, to where he is lying. I kick over the icebox. I pick up a pebble and drop it on his head. My uncle said all homeless are animals. Then why bring food? Something in me, I don’t know. When the old man still doesn’t wake up, I get on my knees and lean over him. I lift the blankets. He is breathing. I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. I look at his face and see his eyes are now wide open. He is like a gazelle caught by a lion. He looks at the icebox, kicked open on its side, fish-heads spilling out. I straighten and look to see if anyone is watching. I empty my paper bag onto his chest. One peach rolls off and his hand darts out to grab it. He is repulsive. I pick the other peach off his shirt and take a bite. He watches me expectantly. I eat and don’t say anything. I break the granola bar in half, setting one half beside his hand that is still gripping the fruit. I finish the other half. Disgusted with myself, I cannot look at him. I stand and walk to the tether. The sun is high now, small. I get in the boat, and when I am far enough out I let myself look back. I cannot see the man’s face clearly, but I can see he is eating the food I brought. He fades out of sight, and once again, I feel strong. Everything is right. I am the boat, following the sun up the coast.
Read the rest of Sailing in Issue 2 of Petrichor Machine, coming in May 2012.
